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KABUL, Afghanistan — The reclusive head of the Afghan Taliban, Mullah Mohammad Omar, warned that
his fighters would continue their attacks if Kabul signed a “colonial” security agreement with the
United States, with grave consequences for Afghanistan, the U.S. and other foreign governments.

The lengthy message, using often flowery language and run-on sentences, was sent by email late
Sunday. It came a day after U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry reached a partial agreement in Kabul
with President Hamid Karzai on a bilateral security agreement, even as the two sides failed to
agree on the core issue of immunity for American military personnel.

The U.S. has offered a $10 million reward for information leading to the arrest of Omar,
described as a tall figure, around 6 feet 6, with a black beard and a patch over his right eye,
which reportedly was damaged by shrapnel in the 1980s when he was fighting the Soviets.

Although Omar has not been seen in public for more than a decade and is thought to be hiding
along the Afghan-Pakistani border, messages in his name are issued regularly by the Islamic Emirate
of Afghanistan, the name used by the Taliban during their harsh rule, which lasted from 1996 until
the U.S.-led invasion in 2001.

The talks between Kerry and Karzai hit a roadblock over the issue of U.S. troop immunity. Kerry
said there could be no agreement unless U.S. troops were given immunity from local prosecution;
Karzai said he would have to submit any immunity provisions to parliament and a loya jirga, an
assembly of tribal elders.

In his “felicitation” to the Afghan people on the eve of Eid al-Adha — one of the year’s
most-important Islamic holidays marking the end of the hajj pilgrimage — Omar questioned the
legitimacy of any loya jirga considering such “documents of slavery.”

“Though the Kabul administration may get these documents rubber-stamped by a fake loya jirga,”
Omar added, “it will not be acceptable to the Afghans.”

The Taliban leader also urged Afghans to boycott the April 5 general election for a new
president — Karzai is not eligible to run again — and called on militants to strengthen their
campaign against Afghan and NATO forces now that “the might of the enemy has begun melting” from
internal friction and betrayal.

Omar’s statement also blamed the West and its allies for perpetrating a “spiritual collapse” on
Afghanistan by trying to impose the “non-veil” on women and dilute Afghanistan culture “under the
name of rights for women.”

Waliullah Rahmani, executive director of the Kabul Center for Strategic Studies, an independent
research group, said it would be a mistake to underestimate the Taliban. “We should recognize that
our enemy is not an illiterate and unorganized Taliban of brutal fighters,” he said. “Rather, we
should see an enemy adept in the modern arts of public perception management, strategies and
psychological warfare.”